Friday 18 October 2024

Separate Ways (part 4) - ATZ an English Adventure

"F*CK THIS" April screamed hoarsely, as she brought down the heavy police issued baton on the top of the nearest D-sub's head with as much power as she could, staving in the skull and dropping the infected being to the floor. This caused the zed following behind to trip over the prone body, and into the zombie that she had tripped earlier. The clumsy creatures became tangled and the red-haired reporter was able to take advantage of the mess to crack another skull before retreating a step and taking another wild swing at the pack of zeds that were desperately trying to drag her down. The swing caught the chin of the leading zed turning its head with such force as to snap it's neck. With that, April realised she was temporarily clear of the press and used that time to sprint backwards toward the woods where the phone was still issuing its strident call, that had already attracted way too much attention. 

thankfully the distance the zeds have to walk and the knocked down zed, 
keep the numbers that can attack April to a mere 3.
Still its a lot for a single citizen to fight

but she does amazingly well and clears those immediately facing her

its then her turn to activate and she decides that discretion is the better
form of valour and retreats to the woods to try to silence the cell phone

April reached the phone just as the gadget rang off, looking at the screen it showed the caller as 'The Boss'. The reporter snorted, that could mean anything from the phone owner's manager at the local Maccy Ds, to their tyrannical life partner, or to the chief bastard operative that were chasing after April! Throwing the phone back into the undergrowth, she ran along the light treeline at the back of the tavern toward the bridleway that would lead her in a northerly direct, and toward her colleague Bobby. Glancing wistfully at the tavern and what she hoped was a fully stocked bar, she sped on fully aware of the mob of zombies shuffling after her. While the thick walls of the medieval building might offer her good protection, it might be more prudent to come back with her camera man in tow, plus she was running behind schedule.

April sighs as she thinks of the soft beds, warm fires and soothing brandy within

but is reminded of the present threat

so she escapes off the board following a successful mission

So that ends my first foray back into the world of ATZ and it was a close run thing, although my narrative may not have conveyed that.  There was a massive amount of luck involved that helped April especially as she was still a citizen and had to take 'citizen brown pants' tests in order to be able to fight back against... well basically everybody! She only failed it twice and both times it didn't have a detrimental effect, just causing her to 'duck back' and away from danger. Thankfully the 'meet and greet' with Matilda and Max did not go badly, although they didn't join her they also didn't attack her with their superior weaponry. Her encounter with the MiBs could have gone hideously wrong with both scoring more successes when it went to 'insight' meaning that they both could act before her. Thankfully both soldiers were rep 3 only and had to roll high to even hit April with their tasers, which they did not. April punished them with higher melee rolls and despite being outnumbered knocked one down before killing the other and then 'popping the weasel' with the knocked down MiB. The triple event following this fight also could have done for her as well and by the end of it she had 13 zeds on the board. Thankfully she is now fully kitted out with the recovered tactical gear of the MiBs and has an interesting map. More importantly she has fulfilled all of the requirements for transitioning to a survivor and will no longer need to test for brown pants and she also gains an increase for a skill and I choose shoot - making it 4. Thematically it should be melee as she was quite the melee star but her rep 3 for shoot means it highly unlikely she ever hits a target so I wanted to change that and thematically she can always do a bit of target practice to improve - sorry. Anyhoo now she is racing toward her meeting with Bobby and the story will progress.

hope you enjoy

dGG 

2 comments:

  1. I thought April was going to be in real trouble, but her luck held out, and successfully completed the mission, The idea of giving an increase on her shooting is a sensible idea, especially as she now has a weapon that will give her ranged shots.

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    1. sorry for the late reply Dave, I'm having real trouble both accessing Blogspot and commenting or replying on others blogs too...

      yeah for a minute April was in real trouble but she seems to have been lucky in her melee rolls, how long that will last who knows :)

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